Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley

by Alison Weir

  The new year of 1568 began with a public spectacle in Edinburgh, calculated to satisfy the demands of the people for justice and retribution. On 3 January, Hay, Hepburn, Powrie and Dalgleish were tried for treason and condemned, then immediately hanged and quartered at the Mercat Cross. According to their depositions, neither Powrie nor Dalgleish had done anything to merit death, but these depositions may not reflect the real truth, and anyway the Lords were not concerned with such niceties. The dismembered corpses of the executed wretches were displayed on pikes above the gates of Glasgow, Hamilton, Dumbarton, Ayr and other western towns, where support for Mary was strongest.

  Drury claimed that, on the scaffold, Hepburn had declared that Huntly, Argyll and Maitland had all signed the bond for Darnley’s murder,57and the Diurnal of Occurrents claims that Hay also named Bothwell, Balfour and “divers other nobles of the realm” and said that “Balfour and Maitland were notoriously known as the principal advisers and counsellors”; but this dying testimony was never offered in evidence against any of those named. Archbishop Beaton informed the Cardinal of Lorraine that all four of the condemned “confessed that they had amply deserved the punishment of death, yet declared the Queen’s innocence, and accused the greatest and chiefest on [the] Council, who were at that time sitting beside [them], especially Morton, Lethington and Balfour, and their own master, the Earl.”58This testimony gave rise to uncomfortable rumours in Edinburgh that the servants were being made scapegoats for the masters, as well as demands that the Lords named “should suffer for their demerits,” and a fresh series of placards and broadsheets began to appear. One was posted outside Moray’s town house, and another to the very wall of the Council Chamber in the Tolbooth, which asked, “why John Hepburn and John Hay were not compelled openly to declare the manner of the King’s slaughter, and who consented thereto?” This whispering campaign served to bolster the Queen’s cause, especially when it became known that the nobles named by the condemned men had “incontinently departed” from Edinburgh, “which [made] the charge against them all the more probable.”59

  The Lennoxes were still convinced that Bothwell and Mary were the sole authors of their son’s slaughter, and in January 1568, they commissioned a memorial picture to proclaim to the world the deep sense of injustice they felt. Painted by a Dutchman, Livinius de Vogelaare, it shows Darnley’s mourning parents and younger brother kneeling before his armour-clad effigy in the chapel royal at Holyrood. In front of them kneels Darnley’s son, the infant James VI, and in the corner is a vignette of Mary’s defeat at Carberry Hill. The picture is littered with inscriptions, but most have been obliterated by time and clumsy restoration; one reads, “Arise, Lord, and avenge the innocent blood of the King my father.” The memorial was painted in London, and therefore does not give an accurate impression of Darnley’s real tomb, but its real impact was meant to be as a piece of powerful political propaganda, intended to provoke Queen Elizabeth to demand the ultimate penalty for Mary and the extradition of Bothwell, who was to suffer the same fate. Elizabeth’s petition to Frederick II to send Bothwell back to Scotland to face trial failed, and the Lennoxes did not live to see the execution of Mary on the English Queen’s orders, but The Memorial of Lord Darnley survives in the Royal Collection at Holyrood Palace as a searing testimony to their terrible and vengeful grief.60

  In faraway Denmark, having just been transferred to Malmoë Castle, on the opposite shore of the Sound to Copenhagen, Bothwell was also stating his case, but in a different manner. On 5 January, he dictated his memoirs, in French, to a Danish secretary appointed by Frederick II; Bothwell himself wrote the subheadings that appear in the margin. These memoirs were later published as Les Affaires du Conte de Boduel. Naturally, this was a highly sanitised version of events, for it was written in the hope of securing Bothwell’s release, and its aim was to present its author in the best possible light and his enemies as utter villains. It named, as “the leaders and principal authors of all this trouble and sedition,” Moray, Atholl, Glencairn, Morton, Mar, Lindsay, Maitland, Bellenden, MacGill, Home, Ruthven, Tullibardine, Preston and Balfour, amongst others—just about all of the ruling élite in Scotland. Bothwell concluded: “I have been falsely accused, detained without justification, and prevented from going about the business I have in certain kingdoms with various princes and noblemen for the freeing of my Princess.”61

  On 13 January, Bothwell wrote to Frederick II explaining the factional strife in Scotland; it is clear from this letter that he was still corresponding with Mary, for he says that she has authorised him to offer Frederick the Isles of Orkney and Shetland in exchange for troops and ships. None of these letters between Bothwell and Mary has survived. It would appear that Mary was hoping that Bothwell would return at the head of an army and rescue her. But Frederick did not take up Bothwell’s offer—he was in fact hoping to get the Scottish government to give him Orkney and Shetland in exchange for his prisoner. In the meantime, “the Scottish King” was quite comfortably housed and allowed visitors and other privileges.

  On 11 February 1568, Drury reported that Mary had been severely ill with “a disease in her side and a swelling in her arm, of whose sickness there ariseth divers bruits and reports in Scotland.”62Because this illness occurred nine months after her abduction by Bothwell, there was talk that the Queen had secretly given birth to his child; her miscarriage the previous July was not common knowledge.

  In 1659, Le Labourer, Louis XIV’s almoner, who edited and annotated the memoirs of the French diplomat, Michel de Castelnau, Sieur de la Mauvissière,63claimed in a footnote—without citing his source—that Mary “was brought to bed of a daughter at Lochleven, who, being privately transported to France, became a nun in the convent of Soissons.” In the nineteenth century, the writer Charlotte Mary Yonge wrote a novel about this child (whom she called Bride), entitled Unknown to History; in this version, the ship carrying the little girl to France is wrecked, but Bride is rescued by a kinsman of the Earl of Shrewsbury who later marries her to his son, Sir Humphrey Talbot.

  Since’s Nau’s account of the Queen’s miscarriage of twins could only have come from Mary herself or her physician, it must be reliable. Even if the miscarriage story had been invented in the 1570s in order to protect the identity of the unknown Princess at Soissons, Mary’s pregnancy would never have advanced to full term without being detected by her gaolers. Furthermore, Mary later referred to James VI as “my only child.” Her illness of January/February 1568 was without doubt a recurrence of the old pain in her side, which was almost certainly caused by a gastric ulcer exacerbated by stress. Bishop Gilbert Burnet, in his History of My Own Time (1724–34), claimed, without any foundation, that Mary had borne a son to George Douglas.

  By March 1568, relations between England and Scotland were warmer, but there was dissension amongst the Lords, who were beginning to be divided in their attitude to Mary. Maitland in particular was becoming strongly disaffected, and secretly sent the Queen a ring in token of his support. M. de la Forrest, the French ambassador in London, was of the opinion that two-thirds of the people in Scotland would rise against Moray if an opportunity arose, for it was felt “that the said Regent and his chief supporters should clear themselves of the murder of the late King—a thing much to be desired, for, for a long time, it has been confidently asserted that these men were accomplices in the said murder.”64Taking advantage of the increasing upsurge in the Queen’s popularity, Seton and the Hamiltons openly declared for her, and in April, encouraged by the way things were going, Mary herself formulated plans for escape.

  Alarmed in case the growing clamour should prejudice the thawing relations with England, Moray sent Nicholas Elphinstone to London with a copy of the Act of Parliament that had pronounced Mary guilty of the murder of Darnley, along with the black pearls that Elizabeth had so much coveted, at a reduced price.65But Elizabeth refused to become embroiled in Scottish affairs.

  On 25 March, Mary made an abortive attempt to escape from Lochleven. Soo
n afterwards, Moray visited her to upbraid her for her folly, only to be confronted by a woman in fighting spirit who angrily castigated him for passing the Act of Parliament that had authorised her detention.

  Five weeks later, Mary did succeed in escaping.

  26

  “I AM NO ENCHANTRESS”

  WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF GEORGE Douglas, Lord John Hamilton, and an orphaned kinsman of George’s, William Douglas, who stole the Laird’s keys, a disguised Mary got out of Lochleven on 2 May 1568, while the household was diverted by a May Day pageant. She was met on the further shore of the loch by Lord Seton, Alexander Hepburn, Laird of Riccarton, who was Bothwell’s cousin, and Lord Claude Hamilton (another of Chatelherault’s sons) and taken to Seton’s castle at Niddry,1two miles north of Broxburn in West Lothian. From there, she sent Riccarton to recapture Dunbar Castle from the Lords, and dispatched two messengers, one to Archbishop Beaton in Paris, informing him of her liberation, and the other to Frederick II to demand Bothwell’s release.2

  Moray was in Glasgow when the news of Mary’s escape was brought to him. “Sore amazed,” he immediately issued a proclamation summoning the lieges to arms.3Sir William Douglas was suicidal, but after bungling an attempt to fall on his dagger, pulled himself together and began raising troops to send in pursuit of his prisoner.

  On 3 May, Mary led her growing force west to Cadzow Castle near Hamilton, the chief seat of the Hamilton family,4where she was joined by several nobles. Here, Archbishop Hamilton helped her to draft a strongly worded proclamation repudiating her abdication, reasserting her lawful sovereignty, and condemning the “ungrateful, unthankful and detestable tyrants and treasonable traitors” who had deposed and imprisoned her, “whom no prince, for their perpetrated murders, could pardon or spare.” The proclamation also named the Hamiltons Mary’s next heirs after Prince James. The Hamiltons had masterminded her rescue, and she was now dependent on them; they were determined to wring every advantage from it, and in the event of this restoration succeeding, they expected to be the power behind the throne. Mary was well aware of this, and because she was unwilling to burn her boats and bind herself to them, she never made the contentious proclamation public. Instead, she gave the Hamiltons to believe that she was considering a marriage with Lord John Hamilton.

  Mary now wrote to Moray, demanding that, as she had abdicated under duress, he must resign as Regent forthwith. When he refused to negotiate, she concentrated her efforts on gathering an army and, with the help of the Hamiltons and other supporters, raised 6,000 men. As her forces grew, so did the Queen’s optimism and Moray’s alarm; before his troops were at full strength, he decided to march on the royalists. Meanwhile, Argyll had joined Mary and been made Lieutenant of her army; Huntly soon followed. When Queen Elizabeth heard the news of Mary’s escape, she sent a message of congratulation, offering help and support; but Mary was never to receive it.

  On 8 May, Mary’s chief supporters—who now numbered nine earls, nine bishops, 18 barons, 14 commendators (receivers of ecclesiastical revenues) and 90 lairds—signed the “Hamilton Bond,” in which they undertook to help her regain her throne. The Queen felt that the best course was to seek an armed confrontation rather than lay the issue of her sovereignty before Parliament, and decided to lead her army west to relieve Dumbarton, which was being held by her supporters against the Lords.

  But the Queen’s hopes were suddenly extinguished when, on 13 May, Moray’s army of 4,000 men led by the invincible Kirkcaldy of Grange inflicted a crushing defeat on her less ably commanded force at the Battle of Langside, just outside Glasgow. It did not help matters that, at a crucial moment, Argyll had withdrawn his troops, claiming he had suffered an epileptic fit, which few believed. His retreat demoralised the royalist soldiers, who soon began fighting amongst themselves and deserting. Seton was captured,5 as was Bishop Leslie, and 100 of the Queen’s men were killed. Some, like David Chalmers, escaped into exile.

  Believing that her cause was lost, Mary fled from the field with Herries, Fleming, Livingston and a dozen other supporters, and rode south-west to Dumfries and Galloway. During her flight, she shaved her head, so as not to be recognised, and was forced to sleep on the ground and subsist on a diet of sour milk and oatmeal.6Her friends tried to persuade her to make for France, where she had lands and an income, but Mary made the fateful decision to flee to England because she was convinced, in the light of Elizabeth’s recent championship of her cause, that her cousin would do everything in her power to help her regain her throne. By the end of August, she told her supporters, she would be back in Scotland at the head of an English army.

  Mary spent her last night in Scotland at the twelfth-century Dundrennan Abbey, a little way south-east of Kirkcudbright. The next day, 16 May, she set sail from Abbeyburnfoot (near Port Mary) with her companions, and crossed the Solway Firth to England. She would never see her kingdom again.

  Mary’s boat put in at Workington on the shores of Cumberland. The next day, she wrote to Queen Elizabeth, outlining her troubles and asking for help. In this letter, she accused the Confederate Lords of devising, “subscribing to and aiding” Darnley’s murder, for the purpose of charging it falsely upon me, as I hope fully to make you understand. I, feeling myself innocent, and desirous to avoid the shedding of blood, placed myself in their hands. They have robbed me of every thing I had in the world, not permitting me either to write or speak, in order that I might not contradict their false inventions.7

  Arriving in a strange land as a distressed sovereign who had come to place herself under the protection of a neighbouring monarch, Mary had little understanding or appreciation of the political problems that her presence in England would cause her cousin Elizabeth. In her simplistic view, she believed that her “dear sister” would unhesitatingly grant her military and financial aid, and speed her back on her victorious way to Scotland.

  But the situation was not as straightforward as Mary thought. As a Catholic and a dynastic rival for Elizabeth’s throne, who had never ratified the Treaty of Edinburgh withdrawing her claim, she represented a dangerous threat to the English Queen’s security, for there were many in Christendom who regarded Mary as the rightful sovereign of England. As a Catholic in a Protestant country, Mary would be a focus for every Catholic agitator and dissident, especially in the north, where the old religion had its greatest following. With her legendary beauty and charm, she might inspire rebellion on both dynastic and religious grounds, and her presence in England would be a magnet to Philip of Spain and the rest of Elizabeth’s foreign enemies.

  There was another disturbing aspect, in that Mary had been condemned by the Scottish Parliament for Darnley’s murder, and many believed her to have been an adulteress and fornicator also. Whatever Elizabeth’s personal feelings on the matter, it would be inappropriate and unwise for her, Darnley’s cousin, and a virgin queen with a reputation to protect, to receive someone as notorious as Mary.

  Yet Mary was a crowned queen, whose abdication Elizabeth had refused to recognise, and by the laws of blood, hospitality and rank, was entitled to be treated as such. She had also been dealt with appallingly by her own subjects. On the other hand, she was too dangerous a person to be permitted to move about freely in England, nor could she be allowed to go to France, in case the French should send an army to Scotland to restore her, which was the last thing Elizabeth wanted. It was small wonder that, when Elizabeth learned of Mary’s arrival, she was plunged into an agony of perplexity over what to do with her. Mercifully, she was unaware that the political crisis that the Scottish Queen’s coming had precipitated would not be resolved for nearly nineteen years.

  Mary had expected to be escorted to London for talks with Elizabeth, but on 18 May, as soon as the local authorities received news of her arrival, she was taken instead to Carlisle Castle, where she was courteously received into what she would soon realise was protective custody. She was deferred to with all the respect and dignity due to a queen, but kept vigilantly under guard, pending i
nstructions from Westminster.

  The news spread fast. Two days later, Drury informed Moray of Mary’s flight to England,8by which time Lennox, who had fought for the Lords at Langside, had already heard of it. When an express messenger reached London on 20 May, Queen Elizabeth summoned an emergency meeting of the Privy Council, at which, with a view to getting rid of Mary as quickly as possible, she declared her wish to receive her honourably and discuss her restoration. This was immediately opposed by Cecil, who had no wish to see the Protestant government in Scotland overthrown. Reminding Elizabeth that Mary had been plotting against her for years, he was all for sending her back to face her fate, but Elizabeth refused to contemplate this on the grounds that she would be sending Mary to her death. On the other hand, she really did not want to embroil herself in a war with Scotland. In the end, it was decided that the Queen of Scots should be kept in honourable custody as her guest until the “vehement presumption” of her complicity in Darnley’s murder was resolved. Elizabeth would be the unwilling arbiter between Mary and her subjects; if innocent, Mary should be restored, if not, some accommodation might be reached whereby she could still remain Queen but Moray would rule. “Our good Queen has the wolf by the ears,” observed Matthew Parker, the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury.

  Elizabeth sent orders to Sir Francis Knollys and Lord Scrope to go to Carlisle to formally welcome Mary, take charge of her, and explain that it would be impossible for her to be received by their mistress until “the great slander of murder” had been “purged.”9In London, the French ambassador was expressing the opinion that Elizabeth would never let Mary come near her.10

  In order to show herself impartial, Elizabeth requested Moray to stop harassing Mary’s supporters. Cecil, who had his own agenda, ordered Drury to keep in close touch with Moray, and when Drury received these instructions on 25 May, he at once informed Moray of them.11They may have included an adjuration to the Regent to present as convincing a case as possible against Mary.